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Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

Well, like I said, I wouldn't go spend the weekend there or build a Summer home, nor would I call it "safe." But it's not entirely "dangerous" either, at least not for spending a few hours there. Film crews have been there taking images of the damage and all sorts of things. (It also can depend on where in the area you are.) And the area is still considered to be uninhabitable for possibly another 20,000 years but you can walk around there for a few hours unprotected and you'd be mostly fine.

That all aside, I think saying it's worse than LVoDH is a bit silly. For me, at least. I liked this better than the last one, it didn't have quite the comic relief-y moments or the bullshit from Justin Long. And the movie was Rated-R, that alone makes it better than the last one!

The movie had plenty of stupid moments, didn't really have interesting villains, but it entertained me for 90 minutes and I walked away happy. (Especially since I didn't see a wedding ring on Lucy meaning her and Doofus Dinkus didn't hook up as was hinted at at the end of the last movie.)

I'd go see another Die Hard movie, fuck it. I enjoy the heck out of them.

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

I was already hating the movie after the first chase scene. It's almost all closeup shots that give absolutely no idea of the geography of this chase. At points, I wasn't even sure if McClane was still in the damn chase. Also, this chase must have produced a body count of a least several dozen. Even McClane is driving around murdering innocent people left and right. Then he rolls his car multiple times not once, but twice and still walks away without a scratch. He is not playing his character from Unbreakable.

I was already hating the movie after the first chase scene. It's almost all closeup shots that give absolutely no idea of the geography of this chase. At points, I wasn't even sure if McClane was still in the damn chase. Also, this chase must have produced a body count of a least several dozen. Even McClane is driving around murdering innocent people left and right. Then he rolls his car multiple times not once, but twice and still walks away without a scratch. He is not playing his character from Unbreakable.

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I agree, that first chase scene was too much, and McClane possibly had a pretty high innocents body/injury count. The camera work in this movie was horrid and yeah the "geography" of that chase is hard to understand. It's odd that McCalne felt the need to steal cars and mow down traffic to catch his son during all of that when it didn't seem like he had a grasp at that point on what was going on. Did he feel it was really worth ending up sitting to next to his son in a Russian "court room" because his son apparently escaped custody?

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

The 4-Day Presidents Day Weekend Estimates have A Good Day to Die Hard placing #1 with an estimated $37.5m domestically.

I personally wanted at least $40m opening(that would've got it into the top 10 Feb openings) so I'm a bit disappointed but FOX must really be cause they were touting $50m. Maybe they just wanted to get into the top 3 Feb openings? Still, for the 5th film in a franchise opening on a Thursday in February it's not all bad.

Since it opened last weekend in a number of international markets the real sweet spot is looking at it's WW to date after 10 days which is $117m. Thus shooting past it's $92m posted production cost. The film is headed for around $275m - 300m WW most likely when it's all over.

Be curious to see what kind of legs the film has. Does WOM help it, it's Cinemascore and RT Audience rating are great, Metacritic and RT Critic not so much. So what wins out in the WOM game?

Sudden Death is Die Hard in a stadium. Under Siege is Die Hard on a boat. Under Siege 2 is Die Hard on a train. You get the idea.

And Die Hard 4 was... Die Hard on the East Coast?
And Die Hard 5 is... Die Hard in Russia?

There's already one big mistake right there.

It's then it's simply no Die Hard when the guy Willis plays is a super hero who walks away from the action scenes like nothing happened. In the original three Die Hards, he always cried at some point, he panicked, shit his pants several times, and in the end he was a physical wreck.

The guy walked on fucking glass and spent the next time crying in the bathroom.

I also hate how he simply walks (or drives) over civilians in this film. What the hell, McClane?

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I agree to me it played like what if James Bond's mission was blown and his cop daddy was standing around looking at the carnage with his cop's instincts. But then our ultimate every man survivor stands in the open and blast away with his machinegun as if he were a terminator.

The only things Die Hard about the movie besides Willis playing the lead character were what could have been added onto the script of any franchise. Have someone call John a cowboy, check. Have John jump off of a building before the fireball from an explosion, check. Accept a R rating so John can use his iconic catch phrase again, check

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

So there is a directors cut but it only says the initial car chase sequence is longer. It's already long, probably good it was edited down.

I want to know are there edits of say John entering the country and declaring to a customs agent that he's "there on vacation"?
Is there a cut sequence where he or Jack fights that hulked out Russian at the end?

This isn't the first time you hear of actors who've been doing a role for this long that they take an almost strict ownership of what happens. It does sound that reading his statements about Bruce's involvement that Willis did almost everything but yell 'Action'.

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

Well, Bruce Willis is the only constant through all of the Die Hard movies so, yeah, I'll go with his ideas and recommendations on the character and franchise over anything else. Though for a touch of humor, see Kevin Smith's experience working with Bruce Willis on the set of "Live Free or Die Hard" (where Smith has a small role as a hacker friend of Justin Long's they seek out to help them.)

Relevant portion begins at about 8:00 and continues through the next portion of the uploaded video. (Back story to the segment: Evening With Kevin Smith 1 ended up being a successful "demo video" for Smith as he came across as very genuine in it, as a result he got a lot of audition offers, one being for Die Hard (4.) Before the audition he "re-wrote" the sides to a dialogue he was more comfortable speaking and offered those as his audition. He didn't feel the audition went well but eventually was given the part as Warlock presumably as "payment" for the re-writes he offered which the Director decided to use (but ultimately was discarded in favor of something else as revealed in the story of the video.) It's really an interesting look at what it was like for Kevin to work with Bruce Willis in Die Hard and in a future edition of "Evening With..." Smith recounts his experience in working with Willis on "Cop Out."

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

Box Office Mojo has done their week one analysis wrap up accounting for the international numbers now. Their early conclusion for a worldwide total is promising.

A Good Day to Die Hard still has to open in Australia, Brazil, France, India and China, which means there's still a good chance it ultimately matches Live Free or Die Hard's $250 million overseas total.

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

Finally saw this last night. It isn't a good Die Hard film, and I'm not even sure it's a good action film.

The bad:

The setting. Seriously they filmed this in Moscow and (supposedly) Chernobyl, yet neither place feels remotely real, we never get a feel for Moscow, a city with wonderful architecture and a very different way of life. For a Die Hard film it's unforgivable not to play up the 'fish out of water' elements of having John McClane in another country dealing with another culture. Even the cab driver speaks/sings English, and where are the Russian cops? Really you could have set this film anywhere. In Vengence New York was a character in itself. As for Chernobyle, I felt like they were just on a set and again you didn't get a feel for what the place looked like cos it was night (also I like that it takes 5 minutes to drive there from Moscow apparently...)

Jai Courteny. Charisma vacuum. If they have to do a 6th I hope they bring Lucy back because she dominated the screen more in 2 minutes than he did in 90+

Overly convoluted plans. Seriously as contrived as Silva's plan is in Skyfall it pales in comparison to Komorov's(?) five years in prison plan, or in fact the CIA's dumbest plans ever#125, so Jack goes and shoots a guy, so he can be arrested and then end up in court next to Komorov? WTF?

The direction. The car chase was atrocious, I almost had to look away at times because it was giving me motion sickness, and it was a mess. See the aformentioned comments regarding how flatly Moscow and Chernobyl were filmed, plus the ridiculous lingering camerawork. How long do you have to stare at Jack's boot gun/knife before you realise IT'S IMPORTANT! (several minutes apparently)

The bad guys. No charisma, Komorov and his daughter were vaguely interesting, but generic to a fault and dancing guy...with a carrot?

John and Jack as Terminators..., the entire notion that made the first one so great is that Mcclane isn't an invulnerable superman. I can appreciate that he's older and more experienced but still...

On the plus side I thought Willis was great, considering I'd heard he looked bored throughout the film I was pleasantly surprised, I only hope he gets to make one more decent Die Hard film before he hangs up his Beretta. In fairness this wasn't as awful as I'd expected it to be, and frankly I haven't seen the 4th one in ages, but at the moment this is the worst of the five for me.

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

Finally saw it today, there were three people there besides me, two chatted to each other the whole time and the other was either eating or on his phone not paying attention.

The film itself was disappointing, there were plenty of nice little moments here and there but everything else just fell flat and most of it is instantly forgettable.

The two biggest set pieces of the entire film were idiotic, the chase scene was far too obviously filmed in Hungary, not just bits and pieces but all the historic districts of the area, the connecting bridges, Hungarian on many signs and buildings and the Danube taking up chunks of the screen several times.

And the Chernobyl sequence was brainless indeed, the spray used to decontaminate the boxes interesting in that there are some that do that, the likes of Chloro-flouro-methane. The problem is all these gasses are lethal and will, amongst other things, liquify the lungs and other organs if inhaled, causing major chemical burns to skin and eyes on contact.

The lack of a single villain was annoying, all of them were weak and poorly done, the movie plods along and what good sequences we get don't last too long.

The family aspect of it was great though, every scene of him and either Jack or Lucy is well done and the ending was touching. I was just hoping for better overall.

Re: A Good Day to Die Hard (aka DH5): Grade, Review, Discuss---SPOILER

Fast and dirty review:

B... Better than 4 and, frankly 2 (mostly becuase 2 was too much of a retread of 1)... But it was a far cry from 1 and 3...

The bad: Over the top stunts... For those of us who thought the ejector seat stunt in #2 was over the top, this took the cake.. However they weren't as bad (mostly) as the stunts in #4 (You killed a helicopter with a car? Really?)...

The good: The action was great and despite the McClanes as Terminators, it was loud and popcorny fun... The father/son relationship was a nice touch and frankly, I didn't have a problem with the thinly developed baddie(s)... Let's face it, NONE of the bad guys in these movies have been that well developed... The Grubers were saved by being played by great actors..

And finally.. And this is just one of those nitpicks... John and Holly are no longer together. OK, I get that.. Duh... But don't you think that Mom Gennero would want to be at the airport when her son arrives? If Lucy can be there, is Holly so busy that she couldn't? I wouldn't even have minded if it were a different actress... It just seemed weird not to have her at least mentioned...

For the final act, they ought to go back to the very basics: McClane on a ________. Only a modest budget necessary. And make him mortal again, for Pete's sake.

Has "cruise ship" been played out by Speed 2?

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Maybe he'll pull a Stallone and make his version of Rocky Balboa (which together with the first one were awesome movies in themselves, the others are just brainless fun movies).

I had the good graces to stay away from it and from what i hear it's a good decision. Die Hard died for me with the atrocious 4th movie and it shall remain there until either Willis gives up or pulls an ace out of his sleeve.